43: Chapter 43 Thousand-Tough Black Silk Armor

Spiritless Ruins.

Gu Shen stepped on the broken iron staircase, silently entering the second-floor hall.

A pungent, musty odor rushed to meet him. The second floor was more spacious than the first, and everywhere he looked, there were toppled iron shelves. Countless fabrics, long since weathered to dust, were scattered across the shelves.

At the slightest movement of air, those fabrics turned into clouds of dust.

"This must be the storeroom where the Ancient Sect kept its Disciples' robes."

Gu Shen's Divine Sense pressed against the floor, spreading forward cautiously.

Within a radius of twenty zhang, it was dead silent. There was none of the violent aura of the Tier 3 Cursed Corpse from the first-floor lobby, but it carried an inescapable, chilling Yin Qi.

He gripped the thunder pattern gold-slaying blade, not activating the Wood Armor Technique to conserve his spiritual power.

Rustle.

A faint friction sound came from behind a pile of abandoned iron shelves on the left.

Gu Shen stopped, his gaze sharp as a blade.

Three hunched black shadows crawled slowly from the shadows of the iron shelves. They were three gaunt, dried corpses, their flesh long weathered and blackened, clinging tightly to their bones. Their eye sockets were deeply sunken, and their ten fingers had grown half-a-foot-long, jet-black sharp claws.

Tier 1 Dried Corpse.

Although not as violent as the Corpse Dog he had encountered before, these monsters had been lurking in the Spiritless Ruins for a long time, and their bones had long been eroded by Yin Qi to be as hard as iron.

Roar!

Sensing the aura of a living person, the three dried corpses let out hisses from their throats, dropped to all fours, and lunged at Gu Shen from three directions like three streaks of black lightning.

Their speed was extremely fast, far exceeding that of ordinary beasts.

But Gu Shen didn't even blink.

Now at Qi Refinement Level 6, these Tier 1 evil spirits were full of flaws in his eyes.

Clang!

A crisp sound of a blade humming.

Gu Shen swung his right hand casually. As one-tenth of his spiritual power poured into the blade, the natural dark blue thunder patterns on the surface of the gold-severing saber suddenly glowed brightly.

Swoosh!

A crescent-shaped thunder blade aura swept out, tearing through the gray mist.

The two dried corpses at the front didn't even have time to swing their claws before they were cut in half by the thunder blade aura. The overbearing thunder magnetic force rampaged along the cuts, instantly burning away the residual Yin Qi in the two dried corpses, turning them into two charred lumps.

The remaining dried corpse lunged at Gu Shen's face.

Gu Shen raised his left hand casually, not even using the black turtle shield, and directly grabbed the corpse's stabbing claw with his Physical Body's strength.

Snap.

With a squeeze, the hard bone claw snapped upon contact.

Then, a flash of blade light, and the dried corpse's head flew into the sky.

A crushing defeat.

A slaughter without suspense. With Qi Refinement Level 6 and a top-grade thunder-attribute weapon, cleaning up such low-tier evil spirits was like cutting melons and vegetables.

Gu Shen sheathed his long saber and walked to the three remains.

He pressed his hand down.

The Heaven and Earth Furnace in his Sea of Consciousness operated, and gray light swallowed all the remains on the ground. Because these three dried corpses were very old and their flesh essence had been severely lost, the Great Furnace only refined two drops of the lowest-grade essence white dew.

He put the essence white dew into his storage ring.

Gu Shen continued walking deeper into the second floor.

This robe storeroom was surprisingly large, but after searching dozens of iron shelves along the way, everything he saw had decayed. The erosion of ancient times had caused those ordinary silks and linens to completely lose their value.

Until he walked to a manager's counter in a corner.

Behind the counter lay a very special skeleton.

This skeleton was much sturdier than an ordinary person's and was wearing a strange black robe (modern bulletproof and stab-proof vest). Although the outer layer of the robe had rotted away, the layer of black, exotic material sandwiched inside was still intact, even gleaming with a cold luster.

Gu Shen's heart stirred.

He stepped forward and used the tip of his saber to pry open the rotten fabric.

It revealed a very thick, sleeveless inner armor that looked like it had been woven from millions of fine black threads.

The Great Furnace vibrated.

[Discovered Mortal exotic object: thousand-tough black silk armor.] [No spiritual energy fluctuation. Impervious to water and fire, resistant to blades and swords, can dissipate immense force.]

"Good stuff!"

A flash of joy crossed Gu Shen's eyes.

Although it was only a Mortal object without any array patterns, this tough material that even time could not erode was exactly the close-fitting protection he needed right now.

He immediately stripped the thousand-tough black silk armor from the skeleton and shook off the dust.

Grabbing both ends of the inner armor with both hands, he pulled outward forcefully. With his Qi Refinement Level 6 arm strength, he couldn't stretch it even a fraction. He then used the blade of the gold-severing saber without channeling spiritual power to gently slice it, and it didn't even leave a white mark.

"If I wear it as the innermost layer and put my Loose Cultivator robes over it, once I encounter a surprise attack, the outermost layer has the Wood Armor Technique, the middle has this black silk armor to dissipate force, and then I can use the black turtle shield to block... Triple protection."

Gu Shen felt reassured. He took off his outer coat and put on the slightly stifling black silk armor.

Although it was a bit hot and stuffy, the heavy sense of security made him feel extremely grounded.

After putting on the inner armor, Gu Shen's gaze fell on a large iron box (safe) behind the manager's counter.

The box was locked.

Swish.

The thunder-imbued gold-severing saber easily cut through the lock.

Gu Shen lifted the iron lid. Inside, there was no iron-sealed meat paste he had hoped for, nor were there any Spirit Stones. There were only a few ledgers that had rotted into mud, and three crystal-clear glass bottles lying quietly in the corner.

The bottles were filled with clear, transparent liquid and were well sealed.

"This Ancient Sect was truly extravagant to store even ordinary clean water in glass. But it just happens to solve my water shortage."

Gu Shen put the three bottles of clean water into his storage ring. Added to the three cans of meat paste he had left over, his rations for lurking in Pingyang City would last him a few more days.

Confirming there was nothing left around the counter, Gu Shen prepared to leave this area.

The moment he turned around, his gaze inadvertently swept across the wall.

It was a huge glass wall with a flat iron plate (mall floor plan) embedded in it. Although the iron plate was rusty, the lines drawn in red and yellow paint were still clearly distinguishable.

Gu Shen walked closer and examined it carefully.

The text written on it had long since become illegible with the passage of time. But this did not prevent him from understanding the essence of this picture.

"This is a cross-sectional array map of the Sect's architecture."

Gu Shen slid his finger along the lines.

The map showed the structure of this huge glass tower. There were five floors above ground, with each floor divided into different areas by lines. The first, second, and third floors completely matched the terrain he had explored.

And when his gaze followed the dashed line representing the stairs downward, his pupils shrank.

This tower didn't just have five floors above ground.

Underground, there was actually an extremely vast space!

The first underground level was drawn with dense squares; he didn't know what their purpose was.

And the lowest underground level, in the deepest part of the drawing full of caked, blackened mold and rust, faintly depicted a huge door. On the door, a rune representing violence and extreme danger was drawn in extremely eye-catching red paint—

A jagged thunderbolt!

Boom!

Gu Shen instantly connected the clues in his mind.

He had dismantled thousands of crystals in the third-floor restricted area just to refine a soybean-sized amount of thunder magnetic fine sand.

And here, deep underground, it was specifically marked with such an eye-catching thunder array pattern!

"That place must be the core hub of this Ancient Sect that provides thunder magnetic power! It is highly likely to contain a massive amount of thunder-attribute treasures!" Gu Shen's breathing quickened for a moment.

If he could obtain a massive amount of thunder magnetic fine sand, his thunder pattern gold-slaying blade would completely transform, and he might even be able to use this as a foundation to Cultivate an extremely rare and overbearing thunder-attribute Cultivation Technique!

But immediately after, his greed was forcibly extinguished by a bone-chilling coldness.

The iron rule of the Cultivation World: the greater the Opportunity, the faster you die.

In the lobby above ground of this Spiritless Ruins, even a wandering gatekeeping Cursed Corpse had Tier 3 strength. Then, what kind of terrifying evil spirit monster would be bred in the underground of this ruin, a place that never saw the sun and gathered extreme Yin?

Even a Foundation Establishment Stage expert would likely face ten deaths and no life if they rashly went down there!

"Thunder magnetic hub... This is a huge bait, but I can't swallow it right now."

Gu Shen forcibly moved his gaze away from the array map.

He firmly imprinted the structure of the array map and the location of the underground passage entrance in his mind, then turned and walked toward the storeroom exit without nostalgia.

As long as he didn't die, the massive thunder magnetic resources underground would sooner or later be in his pocket. But definitely not now.

Returning to the absolutely safe first-floor storeroom.

Gu Shen sat cross-legged and calmed his agitated state of mind. Today's exploration of the second floor, although he only killed three low-tier dried corpses, the value of the thousand-tough black silk armor and that underground array map was immeasurable.

"It's time to go back. Pingyang City isn't safe yet."

Gu Shen closed his eyes.

Gray mist rolled in.

...

Chen State, west of Pingyang City.

In the main room of the dead-silent, dilapidated courtyard.

Gu Shen's figure appeared quietly, his feet landing steadily on the ground where the Thick Earth Array was set up.

Shimmering light flowed, and the earthy yellow light curtain remained solid.

He glanced out the window. It was already bright, but the sky over Pingyang City was covered with a layer of thick, dark clouds, as if a rainstorm were about to arrive.

Gu Shen touched the Thousand Faces on his face and the thousand-tough black silk armor he was wearing close to his body.

Just then, his extremely keen hearing caught a hint of abnormality.

Outside the dead-end alley separated by a wall.

Beside the deep tire tracks left by the convoy transporting the yin-gathering soil last night, came a very faint, yet long and powerful sound of footsteps.

Not Mortal laborers. Not vulgar Gang Martial Artists.

It was a Cultivator who knew how to conceal their aura, their footsteps as light as a cat's! And, not just one!

Gu Shen held his breath instantly, his eyes like a deep ancient well.

There were Cultivators who had targeted this batch of "soil" being sent to the White Bone Forest.